


17

by tothevictorgoesthespoils



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Other, character exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 04:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3637578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothevictorgoesthespoils/pseuds/tothevictorgoesthespoils
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>..and brave he surely cannot possibly be that counts pain the supreme evil, nor temperate he that holds pleasure to be the supreme good.</p>
<p>The moments where Vincent becomes, and the burden of the Phantomhive bloodlines falls on his shoulders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	17

Vincent is seventeen, bright-eyed, and a still a philosopher at heart. He is kind, and evolutionary, and filled with a wanderlust and has inherited none of the sternness and severity of his father like Francis.

His birthright is not yet a spectre that tails him like a hound set forth from the very gates of hell. There are no callouses where his thumb meets the palm of his hand, and he has not yet realized that the only law in the privileged world he was bred into is to take everything you can, and to burn every bridge behind you.

He is in the ornate and musty library of the academy, Diederich is sitting across from him begrudgingly transcribing Latin. Vincent has a text of Cicero’s De Officiis laid open on the table, the musk of it’s age making his eyes water.

..and brave he surely cannot possibly be that counts pain the supreme evil, nor temperate he that holds pleasure to be the supreme good.

Before he left the manor, his father placed the text in his hands with a stern expression and an even more stern, “I hope you learn that being a man of this family means forfeiting the freedom to decide your own future.” The statement had felt almost like a premonition.

Father Jefferson approaches the table that he and Diederich work at quietly with a grim expression, and a letter with a red wax emblem in his hand. It is then that he hears it for the first time and he comes to understand what has transpired in his absence from the manor. 

"Earl Phantomhive" The Father comes to pause before him, clutching his rosary in his free hand as he hands the letter over to Vincent who takes it calmly. "Are you a man of prayer?"

Vincent fingers the wax seal, he knows in it is a letter regarding his fathers passing. He smiles at Father Jefferson, “No, Father, thank you but that will not be necessary.”  
He imagines his mother, exchanging her emerald dresses for black taffeta, silk, and lace for mourning, and Francis, poor Francis shivering in her stoicism.

We are not born, we do not live for ourselves alone; our country, our friends, have a share in us.

 

In the end, he never bothers opening the letter because he knows that in England, this is how the loyalty of his family has been and ever will be rewarded. For him, there is no time to mourn between packing his bags and being greeted by Tanaka at the manor as he makes arrangements for the funeral service, grand and regal, befitting a loyal and decorated guard dog.

Vincent’s father was a moralist who saw greater good in his service. Vincent’s father believed that loyalty was a trait to be lauded and much cherished, loyalty to your queen, your country, your home, your wife, your children, your sense of honor, and duty.

For his loyalty, this is how his queen has repaid him: reign over the darkness of England, a manor, a family, an albatross on his neck, and the sentence to eternal damnation.


End file.
